tokfandomcom-20200215-history
War of the Seventh Coalition
The Hundred Days War ( ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between 's return from exile on the island of to on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King on 8 July 1815 (a period of 111 days). March, when Napoleon I landed in France, to his defeat at Waterloo on 18 June.}} This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the , the as well as several other . The phrase les Cent Jours (the hundred days) was first used by the of Paris, , in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July. March. When he entered Paris on 8 July, Count Chabrol, prefect of the department of the Seine, accompanied by the municipal body, addressed Louis XVIII in the name of his companions, in a speech that began "Sire,—One hundred days have passed away since your majesty, forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections, left you capital amidst tears and public consternation. ...". }} Napoleon returned while the was sitting. On 13 March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on 25 March , , and the , the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule. This set the stage for the last conflict in the , the defeat of Napoleon at the , the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of , where he died in May 1821. Background Napoleon's rise and fall The and pitted France against various coalitions of other European nations nearly continuously from 1792 onward. The overthrow and subsequent public execution of in France had greatly disturbed other European leaders, who vowed to crush the . Rather than leading to France's defeat, the wars allowed the revolutionary regime to expand beyond its borders and create . The success of the French forces made a hero out of their best commander, . In 1799, Napoleon staged and became First Consul of the new . Five years later, he crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I. The rise of Napoleon troubled the other European powers as much as the earlier revolutionary regime had. Despite the formation of new coalitions against him, Napoleon's forces continued to conquer much of Europe. The tide of war began to turn after a disastrous in 1812 that resulted in the loss of much of Napoleon's army. The following year, during the , Coalition forces defeated the French in the . Following its victory at Leipzig, the Coalition vowed to press on to Paris and depose Napoleon. In the last week of February 1814, Prussian advanced on Paris. After multiple attacks, manoeuvring, and reinforcements on both sides, Blücher won the in early March 1814; this victory prevented the coalition army from being pushed north out of France. The went to Napoleon, but this victory was followed by successive defeats from . Coalition forces entered Paris after the on 30 March 1814. On 6 April 1814, Napoleon abdicated his throne, leading to the accession of and the first a month later. The defeated Napoleon was exiled to the island of off the coast of , while the victorious Coalition sought to redraw the map of Europe at the . Exile in Elba ; he holds a broken sword in one hand and the donkey's tail in the other while two drummers follow him playing a farewell(?) march.}} of his Imperial Guard}} Napoleon spent only 9 months and 21 days in an uneasy forced retirement on Elba (1814–1815), watching events in France with great interest as the Congress of Vienna gradually gathered. He had been escorted to Elba by Sir , who remained in residence there while performing other duties in Italy, but was not Napoleon's jailer. As he foresaw, the shrinkage of the great into the realm of old France caused intense dissatisfaction among the French, a feeling fed by stories of the tactless way in which the princes treated veterans of the and the returning royalist nobility treated the people at large. Equally threatening was the general situation in Europe, which had been stressed and exhausted during the previous decades of near constant warfare. The conflicting demands of major powers were for a time so exorbitant as to bring the at the to the verge of war with each other. Thus every scrap of news reaching remote Elba looked favourable to Napoleon to retake power as he correctly reasoned the news of his return would cause a popular rising as he approached. He also reasoned that the return of French prisoners from Russia, Germany, and Spain would furnish him instantly with a trained, veteran and patriotic army far larger than that which had won renown in the years before 1814. So threatening were the symptoms that the at Paris and the at talked of deporting him to the or to , while others hinted at assassination. Congress of Vienna At the (November 1814 – June 1815) the various participating nations had very different and conflicting goals. Tsar of Russia had expected to absorb much of Poland and to leave a Polish , the , as a against further invasion from Europe. The renewed Prussian state demanded all of the . Austria wanted to allow neither of these things, while it expected to regain control of northern Italy. , of the United Kingdom, supported France (represented by ) and Austria and was at variance with his own Parliament. This almost caused a war to break out, when the Tsar pointed out to Castlereagh that Russia had 450,000 men near Poland and Saxony and he was welcome to try to remove them. Indeed, Alexander stated "I shall be the King of Poland and the King of Prussia will be the King of Saxony". Castlereagh approached King of Prussia to offer him British and Austrian support for Prussia's annexation of Saxony in return for Prussia's support of an independent Poland. The Prussian king repeated this offer in public, offending Alexander so deeply that he challenged of Austria to a duel. Only the intervention of the Austrian crown stopped it. A breach between the four was avoided when members of Britain's Parliament sent word to the Russian ambassador that Castlereagh had exceeded his authority, and Britain would not support an independent Poland. The affair left Prussia deeply suspicious of any British involvement. Return to France , painted by }} While the Allies were distracted, Napoleon solved his problem in characteristic fashion. On 26 February 1815, when the British and French guard ships were absent, he slipped away from on board the French with some 1,000 men and landed at , between and , on 1 March 1815. Except in royalist , he was warmly received. He avoided much of Provence by taking a route through the Alps, marked today as the . Firing no shot in his defence, his troop numbers swelled until they became an army. On 5 March, the nominally royalist 5th Infantry Regiment at went over to Napoleon en masse. The next day they were joined by the 7th Infantry Regiment under its colonel, , who was executed for treason by the Bourbons after the campaign ended. An anecdote illustrates Napoleon's charisma: when royalist troops were deployed to stop the march of Napoleon's force at , near Grenoble, Napoleon stepped out in front of them, ripped open his coat and said "If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am." The men joined his cause. , now one of Louis XVIII's commanders, had said that Napoleon ought to be brought to Paris in an iron cage, but on 14 March, Ney joined Napoleon with 6,000 men. Five days later, after proceeding through the countryside promising constitutional reform and direct elections to an assembly, to the acclaim of gathered crowds, Napoleon entered the capital, from where Louis XVIII had recently fled. The royalists did not pose a major threat: the raised a small force in the south, but at it did not provide resistance against Imperialists under 's command; and the duke, on 9 April 1815, signed a convention whereby the royalists received a free pardon from the Emperor. The royalists of the moved later and caused more difficulty for the Imperialists. Napoleon's health The evidence as to Napoleon's health is somewhat conflicting. , , , Thiébault and others thought him prematurely aged and enfeebled. At Elba, as Sir noted, he became inactive and proportionately . There, too, as in 1815, he began to suffer intermittently from , but to no serious extent. For much of his public life, Napoleon was troubled by , which made sitting on a horse for long periods of time difficult and painful. This condition had disastrous results at Waterloo; during the battle, his inability to sit on his horse for other than very short periods of time interfered with his ability to survey his troops in combat and thus exercise command. Others saw no marked change in him; while , who knew the emperor well, attributed the lassitude which now and then came over him to a feeling of perplexity caused by his changed circumstances. Constitutional reform At , on 13 March 1815, Napoleon issued an edict dissolving the existing chambers and ordering the convocation of a national mass meeting, or Champ de Mai, for the purpose of modifying the constitution of the . He reportedly told , "I am growing old. The repose of a constitutional king may suit me. It will more surely suit my son". That work was carried out by Benjamin Constant in concert with the Emperor. The resulting (supplementary to the constitutions of the Empire) bestowed on France a hereditary and a elected by the "electoral colleges" of the empire. According to , in reference to Louis XVIII's constitutional charter, the new constitution—''La Benjamine'', it was dubbed—was merely a "slightly improved" version of the charter associated with Louis XVIII's administration; however, later historians, including Agatha Ramm, have pointed out that this constitution permitted the extension of the franchise and explicitly guaranteed press freedom. In the Republican manner, the Constitution was put to the people of France in a , but whether due to lack of enthusiasm, or because the nation was suddenly thrown into military preparation, only 1,532,527 votes were cast, less than half of the vote in the plebiscites of the ; however, the benefit of a "large majority" meant that Napoleon felt he had constitutional sanction. Napoleon was with difficulty dissuaded from quashing the 3 June election of , the staunch liberal who had so often opposed the Emperor, as president of the Chamber of Representatives. In his last communication to them, Napoleon warned them not to imitate the Greeks of the late , who engaged in subtle discussions when the ram was battering at their gates. Military mobilisation . In addition, Napoleon had to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection.}} During the Hundred Days both the Coalition nations and Napoleon I mobilised for war. Upon re-assumption of the throne, Napoleon found that Louis XVIII had left him with few resources. There were 56,000 soldiers, of which 46,000 were ready to campaign. By the end of May the total armed forces available to Napoleon had reached 198,000 with 66,000 more in depots training up but not yet ready for deployment. By the end of May Napoleon had formed (the "Army of the North") which, led by himself, would participate in the . For the defence of France, Napoleon deployed his remaining forces within France with the intention of delaying his foreign enemies while he suppressed his domestic ones. By June he had organised his forces thus: * V Corps, – L'Armée du Rhin – commanded by , cantoned near ; * VII Corps – L' – commanded by , cantoned at Lyon; * I Corps of Observation – L'Armée du Jura – commanded by , cantoned at Belfort; * II Corps of Observation – L' – commanded by , based at Toulon; * III Corps of Observation – Army of the Pyrenees orientales – commanded by , based at Toulouse; * IV Corps of Observation – Army of the Pyrenees occidentales – commanded by , based at Bordeaux; * Army of the West, – Armée de l'Ouest (also known as the Army of the Vendee and the Army of the Loire) – commanded by , was formed to suppress the Royalist insurrection in the region of France which remained loyal to King during the Hundred Days. Opposing Coalition forces: gathered Austrian and allied German states, while the formed another Austrian army. King summoned British officers to lead his troops against France. Tsar mustered an army of 250,000 troops and sent these rolling toward the Rhine. Prussia mustered two armies. One under Blücher took post alongside Wellington's British army and its allies. The other was the under General . * Assessed as an immediate threat by Napoleon I: ** Anglo-allied, commanded by Wellington, cantoned south-west of Brussels, headquartered at Brussels. ** Prussian Army commanded by Blücher, cantoned south-east of Brussels, headquartered at Namur. * Close to the borders of France but assessed to be less of a threat by Napoleon I: ** The German Corps (North German Federal Army) which was part of Blücher's army, but was acting independently south of the main Prussian army. Blücher summoned it to join the main army once Napoleon's intentions became known. ** The Austrian Army of the Upper Rhine, commanded by Field Marshal . ** The Swiss Army, commanded by . ** The Austrian Army of Upper Italy – Austro-Sardinian Army – commanded by . ** The Austrian Army of Naples, commanded by . * Other coalition forces which were either converging on France, mobilised to defend the homelands, or in the process of mobilisation included: ** A Russian Army, commanded by , marching towards France ** A Reserve Russian Army to support Barclay de Tolly if required. ** A Reserve Prussian Army stationed at home in order to defend its borders. ** An Anglo-Sicilian Army under General Sir , which was to be landed by the Royal Navy on the southern French coast. ** Two Spanish Armies were assembling and planning to invade over the Pyrenees. ** A Netherlands Corps, under , was not present at Waterloo but as a corps in Wellington's army it did take part in minor military actions during the Coalition's invasion of France. ** A Danish contingent known as the Royal Danish Auxiliary Corps (commanded by General ) and a Hanseatic contingent (from the free cities of Bremen, Lübeck and Hamburg) later commanded by the British Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, were on their way to join Wellington; both however, joined the army in July having missed the conflict. ** A Portuguese contingent, which due to the speed of events never assembled. War begins At the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia) and their allies , and with the signing of this declaration on 13 March 1815, so began the War of the Seventh Coalition. The hopes of peace that Napoleon had entertained were gone – war was now inevitable. A further treaty (the ) was ratified on 25 March, in which each of the Great European Powers agreed to pledge 150,000 men for the coming conflict. Such a number was not possible for Great Britain, as her standing army was smaller than those of her three peers. Besides, her forces were scattered around the globe, with many units still in Canada, where the had recently ended. With this in mind, she made up her numerical deficiencies by paying subsidies to the other Powers and to the other states of Europe who would contribute contingents. Some time after the allies began mobilising, it was agreed that the planned invasion of France was to commence on 1 July 1815, much later than both Blücher and Wellington would have liked, as both their armies were ready in June, ahead of the Austrians and Russians; the latter were still some distance away. The advantage of this later invasion date was that it allowed all the invading Coalition armies a chance to be ready at the same time. They could deploy their combined, numerically superior forces against Napoleon's smaller, thinly spread forces, thus ensuring his defeat and avoiding a possible defeat within the borders of France. Yet this postponed invasion date allowed Napoleon more time to strengthen his forces and defences, which would make defeating him harder and more costly in lives, time and money. Napoleon now had to decide whether to fight a defensive or offensive campaign. Defence would entail repeating the 1814 campaign in France, but with much larger numbers of troops at his disposal. France's chief cities (Paris and Lyon) would be fortified and two great French armies, the larger before Paris and the smaller before Lyon, would protect them; would be encouraged, giving the Coalition armies their own taste of guerrilla warfare. Napoleon chose to attack, which entailed a pre-emptive strike at his enemies before they were all fully assembled and able to co-operate. By destroying some of the major Coalition armies, Napoleon believed he would then be able to bring the governments of the Seventh Coalition to the peace table to discuss terms favourable to himself: namely, peace for France, with himself remaining in power as its head. If peace were rejected by the Coalition powers, despite any pre-emptive military success he might have achieved using the offensive military option available to him, then the war would continue and he could turn his attention to defeating the rest of the Coalition armies. Napoleon's decision to attack in Belgium was supported by several considerations. First, he had learned that the British and Prussian armies were widely dispersed and might be . Further, the British troops in Belgium were largely second-line troops; most of the veterans of the had been sent to America to fight the . And, politically, a French victory might trigger a friendly revolution in French-speaking Brussels. Waterloo Campaign The (15 June – 8 July 1815) was fought between the French and two Seventh Coalition armies: an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by , but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the . Command then rested on Marshals and , who were in turn replaced by , who took command at the request of the . The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the and the Prussian army by . Start of hostilities (15 June) Hostilities started on 15 June when the French drove in the Prussian outposts and crossed the at and secured Napoleon's favoured "central position"—at the junction between the cantonment areas of Wellington's army (to the west) and Blücher's army to the east. Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny (16 June) On 16 June, the French prevailed, with commanding the left wing of the French army holding Wellington at the and Napoleon defeating Blücher at the . Interlude (17 June) On 17 June, Napoleon left Grouchy with the right wing of the French army to pursue the Prussians, while he took the reserves and command of the left wing of the army to pursue Wellington towards Brussels. On the night of 17 June, the Anglo-allied army turned and prepared for battle on a gentle escarpment, about south of the village of . Battle of Waterloo (18 June) The next day, the proved to be the decisive battle of the campaign. The Anglo-allied army stood fast against repeated French attacks, until with the aid of several Prussian corps that arrived on the east of the battlefield in the early evening, they managed to rout the French Army. Grouchy, with the right wing of the army, engaged a Prussian rearguard at the simultaneous , and although he won a tactical victory, his failure to prevent the Prussians marching to Waterloo meant that his actions contributed to the French defeat at Waterloo. The next day (19 June), Grouchy left Wavre and started a long retreat back to Paris. Invasion of France After the defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon chose not to remain with the army and attempt to rally it, but returned to Paris to try to secure political support for further action. This he failed to do and was forced to resign. The two Coalition armies hotly pursued the French army to the gates of Paris, during which time the French, on occasion, turned and fought some delaying actions, in which thousands of men were killed. Abdication of Napoleon (22 June) On arriving at Paris, three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of concerted national resistance, but the temper of the chambers and of the public generally forbade any such attempt. Napoleon and his brother were almost alone in believing that, by dissolving the chambers and declaring Napoleon dictator, they could save France from the armies of the powers now converging on Paris. Even , minister of war, advised Napoleon that the destiny of France rested solely with the chambers. Clearly, it was time to safeguard what remained, and that could best be done under 's shield of legitimacy. was the minister of justice during this time and was a close confidant of Napoleon. Napoleon himself at last recognised the truth. When Lucien pressed him to "dare", he replied, "Alas, I have dared only too much already". On 22 June 1815 he abdicated in favour of his son, , well knowing that it was a formality, as his four-year-old son was in Austria. French Provisional Government With the abdication of Napoleon, a provisional government with as acting president was formed. Initially, the remnants of the French Army of the North (the left wing and the reserves) that was routed at Waterloo were commanded by Marshal Soult, while Grouchy kept command of the right wing that had fought at Wavre. However, on 25 June, Soult was relieved of his command by the Provisional Government and was replaced by Grouchy, who in turn was placed under the command of Marshal Davout. On the same day, 25 June, Napoleon received from Fouché, the president of the newly appointed provisional government (and Napoleon's former police chief), an intimation that he must leave Paris. He retired to , the former home of , where she had died shortly after his first abdication. On 29 June, the near approach of the Prussians, who had orders to seize Napoleon, dead or alive, caused him to retire westwards toward , whence he hoped to reach the United States. The presence of blockading warships under Vice Admiral , with orders to prevent his escape, forestalled this plan. Coalition forces enter Paris (7 July) French troops in Paris had as many soldiers as the invaders and more cannons. There were two major skirmishes and a few minor ones near Paris during the first few days of July. In the first major skirmish, the , on 1 July, French dragoons, supported by infantry and commanded by General , destroyed a Prussian brigade of hussars under the command of Colonel (who was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the skirmish), before retreating. In the second skirmish, on 3 July, General (under Davout's command) was decisively defeated by General Graf von Zieten (under Blücher's command) at the , forcing the French to retreat into Paris. With this defeat, all hope of holding Paris faded and the French Provisional Government authorised delegates to accept capitulation terms, which led to the (the surrender of Paris) and the end of hostilities between France and the armies of Blücher and Wellington. On 4 July, under the terms of the Convention of St. Cloud, the French army, commanded by Marshal Davout, left Paris and proceeded to cross the . The Anglo-allied troops occupied Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen, Clichy and Neuilly. On 5 July, the Anglo-allied army took possession of Montmartre. On 6 July, the Anglo-allied troops occupied the , on the right of the Seine, while the Prussians occupied those upon the left bank. On 7 July, the two Coalition armies, with Graf von Zieten's Prussian I Corps as the vanguard, entered Paris. The , having received from the Provisional Government a notification of the course of events, terminated its sittings; the protested, but in vain. Their President (Lanjuinais) resigned his Chair, and on the following day, the doors were closed and the approaches guarded by Coalition troops. Restoration of Louis XVIII (8 July) On 8 July, the French King, Louis XVIII, made his public entry into Paris, amidst the acclamations of the people, and . During Louis XVIII's entry into Paris, Count Chabrol, prefect of the department of the Seine, accompanied by the municipal body, addressed the King, in the name of his companions, in a speech that began "Sire,—One hundred days have passed away since your majesty, forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections, left your capital amidst tears and public consternation. ...". Surrender of Napoleon (15 July) . Orchardson depicts the morning of 23 July 1815, as Napoleon watches the French shoreline recede.}} Unable to remain in France or escape from it, Napoleon surrendered to Captain of in the early morning of 15 July 1815 and was transported to England. Napoleon was exiled to the island of where he died in May 1821. Other campaigns and wars While Napoleon had assessed that the Coalition forces in and around Brussels on the borders of north-east France posed the greatest threat, because Russian army of 150,000 were still not in the theatre, Spain was slow to mobilise, Prince Austrian army of 210,000 were slow to cross the Rhine, and another Austrian force menacing the south-eastern frontier of France was still not a direct threat, Napoleon still had to place some badly needed forces in positions where they could defend France against other Coalition forces whatever the outcome of the Waterloo campaign. Neapolitan War The between the Napoleonic and the started on 15 March 1815 when Marshal declared war on Austria, and ended on 20 May 1815 with the signing of the . Napoleon had made his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, King of Naples on 1 August 1808. After Napoleon's defeat in 1813, Murat reached an agreement with Austria to save his own throne. However, he realized that the European Powers, meeting as the , planned to remove him and return Naples to its Bourbon rulers. So, after issuing the so-called urging Italian patriots to fight for independence, Murat moved north to fight against the Austrians, who were the greatest threat to his rule. The war was triggered by a pro-Napoleon uprising in Naples, after which Murat declared war on Austria on 15 March 1815, five days before Napoleon's return to Paris. The Austrians were prepared for war. Their suspicions were aroused weeks earlier, when Murat applied for permission to march through Austrian territory to attack the south of France. Austria had reinforced her armies in under the command of prior to war being declared. The war ended after a decisive Austrian victory at the . was reinstated as King of Naples. Ferdinand then sent Neapolitan troops under General Onasco to help the Austrian army in Italy attack southern France. In the long term, the intervention by Austria caused resentment in Italy, which further spurred on the drive towards . Civil war and , which were known to contain many royalist sympathisers, did not rise in open revolt, but did. The Vendée Royalists successfully took and , before they were defeated by General at the on 20 June. They signed the six days later on 26 June. Austrian campaign Rhine frontier In early June, General 's Army of the Rhine of about 23,000 men, with a leavening of experienced troops, advanced towards to block Schwarzenberg's expected advance, but on hearing the news of the French defeat at Waterloo, Rapp withdrew towards Strasbourg turning on 28 June to check the 40,000 men of General Austrian III Corps at the —the last pitched battle of the and a French victory. The next day Rapp continued to retreat to Strasbourg and also sent a garrison to defend . He and his men took no further active part in the campaign and eventually submitted to the Bourbons. To the north of Württenberg's III Corps, General 's Austrian (Bavarian) IV Corps also crossed the French frontier, and then swung south and captured , against some local popular resistance on 27 June. Attached to his command was a Russian detachment, under the command of General Count , that was charged with keeping Wrede's lines of communication open. In early July, Schwarzenberg, having received a request from Wellington and Blücher, ordered Wrede to act as the Austrian vanguard and advance on Paris, and by 5 July, the main body of Wrede's IV Corps had reached . On 6 July, the advance guard made contact with the Prussians, and on 7 July Wrede received intelligence of the Paris Convention and a request to move to the Loire. By 10 July, Wrede's headquarters were at and his corps positioned between the Seine and the Marne. Further south, General Austrian I Corps was hindered by General Armée du Jura, which was largely made up of National Guardsmen and other reserves. Lecourbe fought four delaying actions between 30 June and 8 July at , , and before agreeing to an armistice on 11 July. Archduke Reserve Corps, together with Hohenzollern-Hechingen's II Corps, laid siege to the fortresses of and , with two Swiss brigades from the Swiss Army of General , aiding with the siege of Huningen. Like other Austrian forces, these too were pestered by francs-tireurs. Italian frontier Like Rapp further north, Marshal , with the Armée des Alpes, took the initiative and on 14 June invaded . Facing him was General , with an Austro-Sardinian army of 75,000 men based in Italy. However, on hearing of the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Suchet negotiated an armistice and fell back to s, where on 12 July he surrendered the city to Frimont's army. The coast of was defended by French forces under Marshal , who fell back slowly into the fortress city of , after retreating from Marseilles before the Austrian Army of Naples under the command of General Bianchi, the Anglo-Sicilian forces of Sir , supported by the British Mediterranean fleet of , and the forces of the Sardinian General d'Osasco, the forces of the latter being drawn from the garrison of Nice. Brune did not surrender the city and its naval arsenal until 31 July. Russian campaign The main body of the Russian Army, commanded by Field Marshal Count and amounting to 167,950 men, crossed the Rhine at on 25 June—after Napoleon had abdicated for the second time—and although there was light resistance around Mannheim, it was over by the time the vanguard had advanced as far as . The greater portion of Tolly's army reached Paris and its vicinity by the middle of July. Treaty of Paris , its protectorates, colonies and allies.}} was the last field engagement of the Hundred Days. There was a still commanded by governors that ended with the capitulation of on 13 September 1815. The was signed on 20 November 1815, bringing the to a formal end. Under the 1815 Paris treaty, the previous year's and the Final Act of the , of 9 June 1815, were confirmed. France was reduced to its 1790 boundaries; it lost the territorial gains of the Revolutionary armies in 1790–1792, which the previous Paris treaty had allowed France to keep. France was now also ordered to pay 700 million francs in , in five yearly installments, of the of 20 November 1815. The 1814 treaty had required only that France honour some public and private debts incurred by the Napoleonic regime , see of the }} and to maintain at its own expense a Coalition army of occupation of 150,000 soldiers in the eastern border territories of France, from the to the border with Switzerland, for a maximum of five years. 's moderating transformation from soldier to statesman are discussed by Thomas Dwight Veve. }} The two-fold purpose of the military occupation was made clear by the convention annexed to the treaty, outlining the incremental terms by which France would issue negotiable bonds covering the indemnity: in addition to safeguarding the neighbouring states from a revival of revolution in France, it guaranteed fulfilment of the treaty's financial clauses. }} On the same day, in a separate document, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia renewed the . The princes and free towns who were not signatories were invited to accede to its terms, whereby the treaty became a part of the public law according to which Europe, with the exception of the , .}} established "relations from which a system of real and permanent in Europe is to be derived". } of 30th May, 1814 ; it is quoted to support the sentence by (Wood's main subject is the , terminating the ).}} Notes Attribution * * References Category:Modern history